Police Unions Expose Thug-Like Culture of American Law Enforcement Agencies

Where are all the good policemen hiding?  I don't mean the ones, who help elderly ladies, maybe even black ones as well, cross the busy streets.  I mean the ones who intervene in order to stop a fellow officer as he chokeholds or kicks, or shoots to death a suspect, who may not even be armed.  The partner will in all likelihood observe the "Blue Code of Silence," and even refuse to rat on his buddy, regardless of the severity of the moral or criminal breach.  The American public first heard this term during the 1991 Rodney King incident, where the man was beat senseless by multiple police officers.

I reflected on this aspect of police culture when I learned this morning that the police union referred to as the "Patrolmen's Benevolent  Association" had announced that it would not allow New York Mayor Bill  de Blasio to attend the funerals of policemen who were killed in the line of duty.  According to an article in the New York Observer:

Mr. Lynch [the union head] has been outspoken critic of Mr. de Blasio, particularly in the wake of the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died on Staten Island as a police officer tried to arrest him. Mr. Lynch has been a strong defender of the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, and said Mr. de Blasio’s remarks about his son’s interactions with police left officers “thrown under the bus” by the mayor.

I can understand a policeman's union taking a hard stance when it comes to collective bargaining, but here the issue is murder.  And the attitudes exhibited in New York have been representative of those in Ferguson, Missouri and of police forces and associations across the country.  But this business of protecting their own,  no matter what the moral details, including those who break the law or cover-up murder, is, when you really get down to it,  the mentality of the Mafia. Why should we Americans quietly accept such gangsterism from those responsible for upholding the law?

Far too many folks tolerate this thuggish behavior on the part of law enforcement agencies, because they labor under the assumption that these loose cannons will keep them safe. But let me be blunt.  You're a fool if you think they won't be coming after you too when the opportunities in the poorer parts of town dry up.